“Awake, why sleepest thou, O Lord? arise, cast us not off for ever.”
The urgent petition asking why God sleeps and appears to forget Israel's affliction represents the climax of the complaint—the direct challenge to God to awaken and take action. The designation of God as sleeping suggests extended period of inactivity and inattention; the complaint is not that God momentarily delays but that God appears to have lapsed into unconscious indifference. The plea to awake and cast off slumber implies that God has withdrawn from conscious engagement with covenant people's welfare. The request not to be cast off forever establishes that the complaint seeks divine reversal rather than acceptance of permanent abandonment. This verse frames the entire lament as urgent petition demanding divine action and reversal.
Church Fathers on Psalms 44:23
1. This Psalm is addressed “to the sons of Korah,” as its title shows. Now Korah is equivalent to the word baldness; and we find in the Gospel that our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified in “the place of a skull.” It is clear then that this Psalm is sung to the “sons of His 'Passion.'” Now we have on this point a most certain and most evident testimony from the Apostle Paul; because that at the time when the Church was suffering under the persecutions of the Gentiles, he quoted…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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